Charles C. Shaw. In his
course as a physician, lawyer, legislator and public-spirited citizen
Senator Shaw has been guided by the conservatism of discretion, with
a native cleanness of thought and action. In his career there has
been naught of the spectacular, but he has hewed straight to the line
and has made his influence potent for good in all of the relations of
life. He is engaged in the successful practice of his profession at
Tishomingo, the judicial center of Johnston County, has been an
influential figure in the councils of the democratic party in
Oklahoma, and has effectively and worthily represented the
Twenty-sixth Senatorial District of the state in the Fourth and Fifth
General Assemblies of the Oklahoma Legislature.

Charles Cicero Shaw
was born in Scott County, Arkansas, on the 6th of December, 1877, and
is a son of William A. and Ellen Shaw, the former a native of Georgia
and the latter of Alabama. The Shaw family was founded in America in
the early colonial era, and representative of the same were patriot
soldiers in the war for independence, so that by ancestral heritage
Senator Shaw, of this review, is eligible for membership in the
society of the Sons of the American Revolution. William A. Shaw became
one of the pioneer settlers of Scott County, Arkansas, and was there
a successful contractor for a long period prior to his death, which
occurred in the year 1884, his devoted wife having been summoned to
eternal rest in 1881, when her son, Charles C., of this sketch, was a
child of three years. Her father was an able and influential
clergyman of the Baptist Church in the State of Alabama.

Senator Shaw, who is
a physician as well as a lawyer, acquired his rudimentary education
in the public schools of his native state and was about seven years
old at the time of his father’s death, so that he was doubly orphaned
when a mere lad. In 1895 he went to Texas, in which state he
continued his educational discipline, and in 1901 he became a
resident of Oklahoma. Within a short time thereafter he went to
Kansas City, Missouri, where he entered the University Medical
College, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of
1904 and from which he received the
degree of Doctor of Medicine. Thereafter he was engaged in the
practice of medicine at Ada, Oklahoma, until 1907, the year which
marked the admission of the state to the Union, and in the meanwhile
he had studied law and been admitted to the bar, his tastes and
ambition having led him thus to make a radical change of profession–a
change which his success in the practice of law has fully justified.

In 1907 Senator Shaw
removed to Johnston County, where he has since continued in the
active practice of law and where he holds distinctive precedence as
one of the leading members of the bar of this section of the state.
He became actively associated with political affairs in the formative
period of the state government and has proved a veritable stalwart in
the camp of the democratic party. In 1910 the doctor was chairman of
the Johnston County Democratic Convention, and from 1910 to 1912 he
represented that county as a member of the Democratic State Central
Committee. As a supporter of Hon. William H. Murray, democratic
candidate for governor, Doctor Shaw was specially active in the
campaign of 1910, and in 1912 he was elected to the State Senate as
representative of the Twenty-sixth District, his loyal and effective
service continuing through the Fourth and Fifth General Assemblies of
the Legislature. In the Fourth Legislature Senator Shaw was chairman
of the committee on revenue and taxation and was assigned also to
membership on the following named committees: Legal advisory,
constitution and constitutional amendments, appropriations,
privileges and elections, fees and salaries, public buildings and
capitol, public printing, public health and congressional
apportionment. In the Fifth Legislature he was chairman of the
committee on public-service corporations, and a member of the
committees on legal advisory, rules and procedure, judiciary No. 2,
appropriations, roads and highways, education, public buildings,
public health and committee on committees.

In the Fourth
Legislature Senator Shaw was the floor leader of the majority in the
memorable contest over the state capitol bill, the passage of which
resulted in an early institution of the construction of Oklahoma’s
fine capitol. He was the author of the primary election law enacted
in the same session of the Legislature, and in the Fifth Legislature
he took a leading part in efforts to amend the election law of the
state. As a loyal friend and supporter of the governor, Senator Shaw
earnestly championed the policies of the administration in reference
to a revision of the laws pertaining to courts and court proceedings
and in the creation of a state tax commission. Concerning him the
following estimate has been given and comes from an authoritative
source: “Senator Shaw is a conservative political partisan and
is one of the most popular members of the upper house of the
Legislature. Quiet and unassuming, he has taken little part in
debate, but his broad conceptions of governmental matters, his mature
judgment and his talent for work have made him one of the useful of
the law-makers of Oklahoma.” On June 1, 1916, Doctor Shaw was
appointed physician and surgeon for the Oklahoma State Penitentiary
located at McAlester, Oklahoma.

In the time-honored
Masonic fraternity Senator Shaw has received the thirty-second degree
of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, as a representative of which
he is affiliated with the consistory at McAlester. He is identified
also with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Woodmen of the
World, is a valued and appreciative member of the Johnston County Bar
Association and the Oklahoma State Bar
Association, and both he and his wife
hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church South. It may be
noted that Senator Shaw has two brothers but no sisters and that both
of his brothers are residents of Oklahoma, David A. being engaged in
the practice of law at Poteau, LeFlore County, where he is also
editor and publisher of the Poteau Sun, and William C., who is a
traveling salesman, being a resident of Ada, Pontotoc County.

In May, 1899, in
Hunt County, Texas, was solemnized the marriage of Senator Shaw to
Miss Emily Jane Edwards, and they have three children–Otto Edward,
Charles Haskell and Jewell.